Normally, any train ride that we have to take to get anywhere for a ride ends up being a humph-fest that can only be stopped with massive infusions of caffeine. Not today. Within ten minutes of getting on the train to Aranjuez, SuperLópez is on a rant about the Saturday morning gang. This surprises me. He's usually more discreet, but today, he lays into everyone and anyone - probably would lay into me, too, if I weren't the person he was talking to. I don't know if this is because of the early hour or the crap weather, with the sky threatening to open up and dump on us at any moment. It's like the dropping barometer has set everything loose at once.
Loose, indeed. Wind, grit, trucks (but no tumbleweeds, oddly enough.) We get out of Aranjuez (easier than I thought) and head over the Madrid-Castilla La Mancha border to a small town called Ciruelas. I try to keep to his back wheel; it's hard, considering how much taller and lighter he is - he doesn't have to fight against weight and wind as much as I do. It gets slightly better as we head over the plains by Yepes, but deep down into the bottoms of the gulleys, the wind gets channeled against us - not with enough force to push us backwards, simply blowing hard enough to fool us into thinking that we're going faster than we are. Which is disheartening after an hour.
My mind is suprisingly quiet today - a bit of Amy Winehouse, a bit of positive thinking - but it's easy to let your brain drain of thoughts when the wind keeps scraping against the Buff covering your ears.
Rain comes. Okay.
Rain starts to freeze. Okay.
Two big trucks blow past us, throwing our balance off just enough to push up the adrenaline. Okay.
It is what it is.
La Guardia. Three Guardia Civil trucks sit outside the Bar el Cono, where the bartender takes pity on us and slaps down half a tortilla each and only charges us €4 for a serving and a Coke each. We decide to cut it short and take the train back from El Romeral. Problem - train doesn't come for another three hours.
Screw it. Lunch in Tembleque.
Luckily, neither López nor I have anyone waiting for us at home, which makes it easier to grab lunch and mess about town, taking in all of the sights which I'd already seen on the Trans-Iberian. It is what it is.
Easy ride back to El Romeral, at about 3:15 (train comes at 4:20) and my brain starts going. Right, then: If these things are sent to try us, but we're in a position to get rid of some of them, then why do we tolerate them? Why maintain a friendship that is no longer friendly? Why belong to organizations which don't work to defend our interests? I went to Ikea on Friday to get stuff to reorganize my apartment; what's stopping me from doing the same thing from the shoulders up?
Every so often, we pass tractors disc-ing the fields, pulling up all kinds of gems from the earth. Small flocks of birds trail the tractors, seeing what food and treats the tractors have pulled up. Spring cleaning, spring changing, even with rain looming close by.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Differing ways of being
Once upon a time, when we still cooked our meat over open fires and probably only bathed twice in our lifetimes, English had three verbs that meant "to be". There was "to be", which described permanent situations; "art", which was for emotions and more temporary situations; and one very old, very temporary verb called (and I don't have the proper characters here:) "phtet", which was for passing phases, like being hungry or tired. Spanish gets around this by having three different ways of expressing this: ser, for more or less permanent situations; estar, for situations that can change; and tener, to have, for things that don't last.
Tener is for situations like the trainer. Tener sueño, to be sleepy, when you've spent the entire morning running around like an idiot, and have to get on the trainer an hour after lunch because it's the only space in the day that you can find. Estar cansada, to be temporarily tired, because you're not used to training at such high levels and with such intensity, and you think that you're going to blow out. But never ser cansada, to have had it up to here, to be so fed up that you're at the point of no return.
How's the training going? Des McC. asked this morning. And I said it was going all right, because I am generally enjoying it, though I think I'd enjoy it more if I could focus on it more and not feel like it's something that has to get squeezed between everything else. I am happy, but I am not too tired, yet.
Tener is for situations like the trainer. Tener sueño, to be sleepy, when you've spent the entire morning running around like an idiot, and have to get on the trainer an hour after lunch because it's the only space in the day that you can find. Estar cansada, to be temporarily tired, because you're not used to training at such high levels and with such intensity, and you think that you're going to blow out. But never ser cansada, to have had it up to here, to be so fed up that you're at the point of no return.
How's the training going? Des McC. asked this morning. And I said it was going all right, because I am generally enjoying it, though I think I'd enjoy it more if I could focus on it more and not feel like it's something that has to get squeezed between everything else. I am happy, but I am not too tired, yet.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Attack of the Killer B's
So to get the ride going, Ángel yells out for the guys (and it's almost all guys) in Group A to join him. Nobody moves. This is a bad sign. It means that the riders who are capable of holding higher velocities (but who are too lazy, hungover, whatever, to do so) are going to slip down into Group B, which means that the rest of us who are barely holding onto our positions in Group B are gonna get creamed. Group B ends up with about 20 riders, which means that Group C, the technically slowest group, is gonna be full of people just messing about. So. Group B or Group C? I take my chances with the hammerheads. At least it'll get my heart rate up and I have a chance of looking like I gave it a shot.
I hang on until Tres Cantos. No, to be fair, I hang on until the Autónoma, and by the time we pass the Army base at El Goloso, my tongue is hanging out and I feel like barfing. I pushed too hard yesterday. There's no way I should have raced Buje and Antonio G. to the top of Marañosa (though I was very proud of my winning sprint at the top) and I really should take it a lot easier on Pilar, try riding with her even though she can't open her mouth any more without any of us wanting to scream. But yesterday, I needed to show my stuff. I wanted to show them that I'm not the dumb, fat guiri that they can all laugh at, that they'd better take me seriously or I will kick their asses from here to Finisterre.
And until I bonked on the fourth climb, I think they did.
By the time I reach the Foxá hotel in Tres Cantos, there's no seeing Group B for love or money. They are GONE. God only knows how far behind Group C have gotten; they're far more conservative when it comes to things like jumping red lights or letting the group get too far spread out. Whatever. I have intervals to do today anyway. Once past the main area of Tres Cantos, I push the gears up to a 54X14 and push, hard. I try invoking Amy Winehouse songs, the chattering monkeys, thoughts of Tom Boonen wearing nothing but leather trousers and a smart-ass smirk, anything to keep my mind off the fact that I feel like I'm blowing up. No pain, no gain, says Yago, but I'm not sure I'm gaining anything. All I can feel is the seething anger at being left so far behind.
Which makes it doubly irritating because I'm having trouble keeping my heart rate up. The whole point of doing intervals is to try to keep my heart rate at about 80% maximum for twenty minutes, but I can't; every time the terrain levels out or goes downhill, it plummets from about 154 to 128. I'm five minutes away from two climbs that would make it soar through the roof, but I can't hold on.
And then the snot comes. Oh my God, does it come. Someone turns on the faucet at the back of my sinuses and before I know it, I'm choking on it. I can't hork it out. I can't blow it out. But it's there, washing around but not loose enough to get out in one big loogie. I check behind me. I look in front of me. And, being left-handed, I blast it out onto my left arm warmer and feel relieved that I can breathe. Until four really good-looking guys pass me, muttering "Ánimoooo...." in the same tone of voice that one uses to berate the dog for peeing on the carpet.
But I accidentally hit one of the buttons on the new cycle computer, and bring up the altitude function. I'm riding up a 12% grade. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or not.
I never get to the point of wondering why the hell I'm doing this. Not on the bike. Those thoughts tend to come when I'm exhausted and there's been no time to shop for food and the house is a disaster. But I do wonder how well I am doing it. I know that I'm climbing stronger, that (when I don't blow out) I can climb faster and go faster on flats. What I do wonder, though, is if this ever gets to the point where it gets effortless. Or just feels like it is. I want to be one of those guys who flies up hills and still has enough breath to talk about Real Madrid's season. I don't know how long that'll take. All I can think of when I get to the top of the 12% bit is that it doesn't feel like it's coming fast enough.
We take over one of the cafés in the plaza across from the church in Manzanares el Real; the B's have headed up to the to the Canto Cochino parking lot of the La Pedriza Park, which is packed with cyclists and cars. The C's roll in ten minutes later -- "Where the HELL did they shoot off to?" Pepe grumbles, shooting the hammerheads a poisonous look. The sun is shining, the protein and carbs are starting to settle down.
On the way out, I try joining the B's again, but their numbers have swelled, and instead of having a three-tier system, we've basically broken down into Those Who Go Like Hell and Those Who Take It Easy. I start in the second, chatting with Pepe, but those who can, do, and we get caught in a sub-group which should be Group B, but technically isn't.
And then another problem comes up, sort of. While I value the experience of riders like Pepe and Miguel, who have been riding for over forty years, I'm not sure how to gently extricate myself from being with them so that I can do my second interval. I'm supposed to do a second set of 20 minutes going like hell; but, blocked in with six older guys who are determined to show me the ropes, I end up in a paceline, straight behind Pepe and beside José Antonio. Knowing that these guys are all retired, I take extra care to do this well; me breaking a bone is nothing, but them breaking a bone would mean being laid up for months. But I can't break free, I can't do the Z4, and I don't know which is the bigger sin - not doing the exercise I was prescribed (which is, after all, meant to make me faster and stronger) or passing up on damn near 200 years of collected experience riding around me. I opt for the latter. I'm not in a position where I can turn down more help.
We head back into town going at a pretty good pace, about 28 kilometres an hour, and Pepe gives me some pointers about descending. Let's face it, I'm a lot more corpulent than a LOT of the guys I ride with, and since most of my weight sits from the waist down, it tends to drag me a lot faster and further than any guy who tips the scales like I do. Unless you can get around him safely, don't race him, says Pepe. If he comes down or slides out when he hits the curve, he's gonna take you with him.
And the gang collects again just inside the old town limits of Fuencarral town, where Miguel and a couple of the other guys are hanging out by the club car.
"How she'd do?" says Miguel.
"She's doin' all right," says Pepe, with a big smile on his face. "She's doing quite all right."
Well, they haven't chucked me out yet or demoted me. That's something in itself.
I hang on until Tres Cantos. No, to be fair, I hang on until the Autónoma, and by the time we pass the Army base at El Goloso, my tongue is hanging out and I feel like barfing. I pushed too hard yesterday. There's no way I should have raced Buje and Antonio G. to the top of Marañosa (though I was very proud of my winning sprint at the top) and I really should take it a lot easier on Pilar, try riding with her even though she can't open her mouth any more without any of us wanting to scream. But yesterday, I needed to show my stuff. I wanted to show them that I'm not the dumb, fat guiri that they can all laugh at, that they'd better take me seriously or I will kick their asses from here to Finisterre.
And until I bonked on the fourth climb, I think they did.
By the time I reach the Foxá hotel in Tres Cantos, there's no seeing Group B for love or money. They are GONE. God only knows how far behind Group C have gotten; they're far more conservative when it comes to things like jumping red lights or letting the group get too far spread out. Whatever. I have intervals to do today anyway. Once past the main area of Tres Cantos, I push the gears up to a 54X14 and push, hard. I try invoking Amy Winehouse songs, the chattering monkeys, thoughts of Tom Boonen wearing nothing but leather trousers and a smart-ass smirk, anything to keep my mind off the fact that I feel like I'm blowing up. No pain, no gain, says Yago, but I'm not sure I'm gaining anything. All I can feel is the seething anger at being left so far behind.
Which makes it doubly irritating because I'm having trouble keeping my heart rate up. The whole point of doing intervals is to try to keep my heart rate at about 80% maximum for twenty minutes, but I can't; every time the terrain levels out or goes downhill, it plummets from about 154 to 128. I'm five minutes away from two climbs that would make it soar through the roof, but I can't hold on.
And then the snot comes. Oh my God, does it come. Someone turns on the faucet at the back of my sinuses and before I know it, I'm choking on it. I can't hork it out. I can't blow it out. But it's there, washing around but not loose enough to get out in one big loogie. I check behind me. I look in front of me. And, being left-handed, I blast it out onto my left arm warmer and feel relieved that I can breathe. Until four really good-looking guys pass me, muttering "Ánimoooo...." in the same tone of voice that one uses to berate the dog for peeing on the carpet.
But I accidentally hit one of the buttons on the new cycle computer, and bring up the altitude function. I'm riding up a 12% grade. I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or not.
I never get to the point of wondering why the hell I'm doing this. Not on the bike. Those thoughts tend to come when I'm exhausted and there's been no time to shop for food and the house is a disaster. But I do wonder how well I am doing it. I know that I'm climbing stronger, that (when I don't blow out) I can climb faster and go faster on flats. What I do wonder, though, is if this ever gets to the point where it gets effortless. Or just feels like it is. I want to be one of those guys who flies up hills and still has enough breath to talk about Real Madrid's season. I don't know how long that'll take. All I can think of when I get to the top of the 12% bit is that it doesn't feel like it's coming fast enough.
We take over one of the cafés in the plaza across from the church in Manzanares el Real; the B's have headed up to the to the Canto Cochino parking lot of the La Pedriza Park, which is packed with cyclists and cars. The C's roll in ten minutes later -- "Where the HELL did they shoot off to?" Pepe grumbles, shooting the hammerheads a poisonous look. The sun is shining, the protein and carbs are starting to settle down.
On the way out, I try joining the B's again, but their numbers have swelled, and instead of having a three-tier system, we've basically broken down into Those Who Go Like Hell and Those Who Take It Easy. I start in the second, chatting with Pepe, but those who can, do, and we get caught in a sub-group which should be Group B, but technically isn't.
And then another problem comes up, sort of. While I value the experience of riders like Pepe and Miguel, who have been riding for over forty years, I'm not sure how to gently extricate myself from being with them so that I can do my second interval. I'm supposed to do a second set of 20 minutes going like hell; but, blocked in with six older guys who are determined to show me the ropes, I end up in a paceline, straight behind Pepe and beside José Antonio. Knowing that these guys are all retired, I take extra care to do this well; me breaking a bone is nothing, but them breaking a bone would mean being laid up for months. But I can't break free, I can't do the Z4, and I don't know which is the bigger sin - not doing the exercise I was prescribed (which is, after all, meant to make me faster and stronger) or passing up on damn near 200 years of collected experience riding around me. I opt for the latter. I'm not in a position where I can turn down more help.
We head back into town going at a pretty good pace, about 28 kilometres an hour, and Pepe gives me some pointers about descending. Let's face it, I'm a lot more corpulent than a LOT of the guys I ride with, and since most of my weight sits from the waist down, it tends to drag me a lot faster and further than any guy who tips the scales like I do. Unless you can get around him safely, don't race him, says Pepe. If he comes down or slides out when he hits the curve, he's gonna take you with him.
And the gang collects again just inside the old town limits of Fuencarral town, where Miguel and a couple of the other guys are hanging out by the club car.
"How she'd do?" says Miguel.
"She's doin' all right," says Pepe, with a big smile on his face. "She's doing quite all right."
Well, they haven't chucked me out yet or demoted me. That's something in itself.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Bad Cyclist
"No pain, no gain," says Yago, and by the time I'm finished screwing around with trying to get the Polar on the bike, it's damn near nine and I DO intend on trying to get the training in. But I don't. The trainer is misbehaving and keeps snapping out. The phone rings. I can't focus. I'm days away from the ever-feared arrival of Aunt Flo, and I am in SUCH a mood that, after a while, I give up.
I hate this. I hate not being able to focus and shut my brain off but it's still so damn loaded with irrelevant, non-cycling stuff that I don't half wonder if I'm going to do more harm than good. Which I don't. My f***-it gene is too strong to go so hard I actually hurt myself.
It's ten p.m. I'm sick of messing around with stuff. I still haven't eaten dinner. I'm going to bed, a bad cyclist who can't focus.
But at least I'm honest about it!!!!! :O)
I hate this. I hate not being able to focus and shut my brain off but it's still so damn loaded with irrelevant, non-cycling stuff that I don't half wonder if I'm going to do more harm than good. Which I don't. My f***-it gene is too strong to go so hard I actually hurt myself.
It's ten p.m. I'm sick of messing around with stuff. I still haven't eaten dinner. I'm going to bed, a bad cyclist who can't focus.
But at least I'm honest about it!!!!! :O)
Logjams
Something evil happens when you start losing weight and start burning more energy than you ingest: practically everybody you have contact with turns into an idiot.
The biking buddies who don't clarify where you're supposed to meet for coffee, so that you end up parking your arse in front of their office building for half an hour while they're waiting 500 metres away because they thought you meant another building....morons. The bank? Unmentionables. Tax office? Don't get me started. The student who refuses to use the English she learns in class and, instead, insists on translating every single blessed word from Spanish to English? It's a miracle I'm still employed.
I used to think that I could like being hungry. I know what it's going for, I know why I'm doing this, but God, this is hard. I would rather bike an extra fifty kilometres a day (and I would, if I had the time) rather than have to cut back on carb consumption, like I'm doing now. I feel continuously like I'm three minutes away from either a meltdown or a migrane, and I really, seriously have to restrain myself from talking. ("Are you sure that you're not going through early menopause?" my mom said last night. "When I went through The Change I was never ever really sure what the hell was going to come out of my mouth.")
I look at my Facebook "friends" and think, Why are you here? You're not my friend, and blow them away. I look at the bathroom and before you know it, every surface has been blasted with window cleaner. I look at the pile of photocopies of ESL handouts sitting on the sofa and think, Screw it - it's saved on the hard drive, and chuck them into the recycling bin. And all the time, I'm thinking of bread, of pasta, of all sorts of things I probably should not have, and am thankful that I don't live really, really super close to a grocery store, because I'd be the size of a Volkswagen Beetle right now.
And all the while, I keep trying to calm myself down by thinking, you asked for it...you knew what this would entail when you started...you know what you're like when you're on a diet...you know you love it when you walk into a room of your friends and one by one, you're becoming skinnier than most of them...you know how good it feels to blow by the guys on the rides, especially coming home when you can hold a higher cadence than most of them...you know that it'll be worth it when you win an important competition...ride with Group A without thinking twice...zoom up Canencia or Navacerrada or the Marie-Blanque....
And then I have a piece of bread and some butter, with some spices spread on top.
And then I stop to breathe.
And then I start thinking that it's probably a very good thing that I'm still single and live alone.
The biking buddies who don't clarify where you're supposed to meet for coffee, so that you end up parking your arse in front of their office building for half an hour while they're waiting 500 metres away because they thought you meant another building....morons. The bank? Unmentionables. Tax office? Don't get me started. The student who refuses to use the English she learns in class and, instead, insists on translating every single blessed word from Spanish to English? It's a miracle I'm still employed.
I used to think that I could like being hungry. I know what it's going for, I know why I'm doing this, but God, this is hard. I would rather bike an extra fifty kilometres a day (and I would, if I had the time) rather than have to cut back on carb consumption, like I'm doing now. I feel continuously like I'm three minutes away from either a meltdown or a migrane, and I really, seriously have to restrain myself from talking. ("Are you sure that you're not going through early menopause?" my mom said last night. "When I went through The Change I was never ever really sure what the hell was going to come out of my mouth.")
I look at my Facebook "friends" and think, Why are you here? You're not my friend, and blow them away. I look at the bathroom and before you know it, every surface has been blasted with window cleaner. I look at the pile of photocopies of ESL handouts sitting on the sofa and think, Screw it - it's saved on the hard drive, and chuck them into the recycling bin. And all the time, I'm thinking of bread, of pasta, of all sorts of things I probably should not have, and am thankful that I don't live really, really super close to a grocery store, because I'd be the size of a Volkswagen Beetle right now.
And all the while, I keep trying to calm myself down by thinking, you asked for it...you knew what this would entail when you started...you know what you're like when you're on a diet...you know you love it when you walk into a room of your friends and one by one, you're becoming skinnier than most of them...you know how good it feels to blow by the guys on the rides, especially coming home when you can hold a higher cadence than most of them...you know that it'll be worth it when you win an important competition...ride with Group A without thinking twice...zoom up Canencia or Navacerrada or the Marie-Blanque....
And then I have a piece of bread and some butter, with some spices spread on top.
And then I stop to breathe.
And then I start thinking that it's probably a very good thing that I'm still single and live alone.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Why Lance Armstrong Never Ceases To Bug the Bejeezus out of Me, Part I
So: Lance had his time trial bike stolen yesterday. Apparently it's worth more money than I make in a year. About twenty grand, they say.
So Armstrong gets on Twitter and tells his 118,400 followers that he's offering a reward for its safe return.
And all I can think of is...
a) Did you pay for that marvel of engineering out of your own pocket? Or was it given to you by Trek, who know they're going to make the investment back off of weekend warriors who walk into bike shops and babble, "I want a bike just like the bike Lance rides!!!!!"
b) How much money do you make in a typical year?
c) Then SHUT UP.
So Armstrong gets on Twitter and tells his 118,400 followers that he's offering a reward for its safe return.
And all I can think of is...
a) Did you pay for that marvel of engineering out of your own pocket? Or was it given to you by Trek, who know they're going to make the investment back off of weekend warriors who walk into bike shops and babble, "I want a bike just like the bike Lance rides!!!!!"
b) How much money do you make in a typical year?
c) Then SHUT UP.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Home is where the head tube is
Nothing earth-shatteringly important or meant to move mountains...just a lovely little blog post from Bill Strickland at BICYCLING magazine that I wanted to share:
http://sittingin.bicycling.com/2008/10/bicycle-gothic.html
And what are you still doing inside, Mr. or Mrs. Madrid? It's going up to 15ºc today. There's not a cloud in the sky. It's the first decent weather we've had since December. Get outside already and stop reading dumb blogs like mine.
http://sittingin.bicycling.com/2008/10/bicycle-gothic.html
And what are you still doing inside, Mr. or Mrs. Madrid? It's going up to 15ºc today. There's not a cloud in the sky. It's the first decent weather we've had since December. Get outside already and stop reading dumb blogs like mine.
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